Steven Wolfe, a UKIP member of the European parliament, was an eyewitness to the bombing of the Metro stop in Brussels on Tuesday morning. He called into Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM to discuss the experience with host Stephen K. Bannon, who noted the death toll from that particular bombing was at least ten or eleven people, at the time of the conversation.
Wolfe was in his apartment, about 100 feet away from the station on the opposite side of a narrow street, when the blast occurred. “I heard a loud noise, which I initially thought was a kind of explosion from the back of a car, but then the building rocked,” he recalled.
Venturing outside with his neighbor, he found the shockwave from the explosion had set off all the car alarms in the area, and people were already moving away from the site of the attack.
“I’ll give them their due — the Belgian police were there very rapidly, within five minutes,” he said. The police set about securing the area and ushering onlookers, including Wolfe, back into their apartments.
About ten minutes later, Wolfe decided to head for the European Parliament building, which he said was a five-minute walk from his flat. “By that time, there must have been a dozen police officers … you could see cars being moved away, the roads were being emptied and cleared … and then another large police officer was basically pushing me and a couple of others up the street, away from the area. They didn’t even want us standing there for a few minutes.”
As he was departing, Wolfe observed “a speeding red car, it looked like a Nissan, with four guys in there, who were wearing what looked like white bulletproof vests,” followed immediately by “a blue car with flashing lights, with guys in suits.”
He thought these people were clearly important elements of the terrorism response team. They were soon joined by a large green military transport filled with soldiers.
Wolfe described the Metro station as busy with “thousands of people” headed to government offices, restaurants, and coffee shops during the morning commute. “This is one of the busiest times of the day,” he explained, “and I would imagine at any Metro station across the country, that’s what it’s like.”
He said the station itself is “an old 1970s kind of gray concrete structure … it’s actually quite a narrow entrance to get in, the entrance is only about 12 feet wide, with glass on either side and a small coffee shop on the left-hand side of it, where people stand around, getting their espressos and their little cakes before they get onto the Tube.”
Wolfe characterized the layout as more open and less secure than subway stations in cities like New York, with passengers traveling down a short flight of escalators or stairs to reach a fairly narrow boarding platform. However, the concrete construction is very sturdy. “To blow that up would take quite a sizable bomb, I would have thought — to at least make the noise that we heard, and also the shaking of the building,” he mused.
Wolfe said, “it’s clear there have been huge failings” in Brussels security, given the high threat level in effect after the Paris massacre, which was coordinated by a terror cell based in Belgium.
“It’s clear that the city is unsafe,” he declared, “and I think many European cities will have to answer the fact that it’s very unsafe at the moment.”
“If you have a man who has masterminded, or been part of the masterminding, of a plot to kill so many people in Paris, who was able to get back to Brussels, to live in the area that’s known to have terrorists … where it’s known to have at least 90 ISIS-trained operatives who have been out and fought for ISIS in Syria and elsewhere, who are now living in the area… and they actually knocked on the door where he lives, something like 110 meters away from where he lives, just around the corner… and they weren’t able to catch him, and by chance they only caught him because they were following up somebody else’s false passport to check on that, so they caught him by accident … This goes to show that a massive failing in security in Belgium, a massive failing of security across the European countries, and clearly it’s a very unsafe time for most people,” Wolfe said.
As for the European parliament, Wolfe said security was heightened, but the complex was not on total lockdown. He said he could see both police and heavily armed soldiers taking up positions around the Parliament building from his office window. He doubted he would be allowed to return to his apartment near the blast site any time soon, and understood the necessity of securing the area.
He doubted the European Parliament would be a prime target for follow-up terror attacks. “All these people are interested in is murdering innocent people, who will not be able to go home to their mums and dads, because of the failure of the security services of the European Union,” Wolfe said bitterly.
He said he didn’t want to talk about politics on “a day when so many people have died,” but he gave European politicians a warning: “If you think are secure, then there’s something wrong with you. And you really need to go back and look in the mirror, and answer yourselves to those people who won’t be able to go home to mums and dads, won’t be able to see their children, won’t be able to see their family … but you’re spouting, ‘The nation is secure.’ There’s something wrong with these people, and ordinary individuals in Belgium today have died, because of the arrogance of these individuals.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00AM to 9:00AM EST.
You can listen to the full interview with Steven Wolfe below:
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